Assessment of Timber Loss and Its Economic Impact on Logging in the Dense Rainforest of the Littoral Region in Cameroon

Logging is widely cited as a source of forest degradation, due to the many irregularities in this sector of activity that cause timber and monetary losses. This study aimed to determine the sources of timber loss and its economic impact on logging within the dense rainforest of the littoral region in Cameroon. The study was carried out in the annual cutting plate 1.1 of the 07-004 unit. Data were collected through the administration of semi-structured questionnaires to 36 staff among preparation cubers, prospectors, fellers, loggers, stevedores and buckers, and direct observations concerning felling, forest cutting, shaping and rolling in the skidding sites and the forest parks. Data collection focused on 9 target species of the logging company. The assessment of the lost timber volume involved the cubing of 549 logs and pieces of trunk, using the Huber’s formula. Descriptive statistics were carried out to process quantitative data and generate graphs. The analysis was carried out using SPSS Statistics 26. The monetary value in FCFA of lost timber was evaluated using the free on board price of the year 2017 recommended by the Ministry of Forest and Wildlife. The results showed that there were four sources of timber loss identified at the skidding sites and the forest parks, including poor work planning, unqualified personnel, wood defects and inadequate equipment and methods. These loss sources induce seventeen causes of timber losses, all identified at the forest parks, with uprooting (16.17%) and excessive purge of bumps (15.25%) as the most frequent. Thirteen among the seventeen loss causes were identified at the skidding sites, with abandonment (24.55%) and oversight (18.18%) being the most frequent. There is a strong positive correlation between most loss causes, with the exception of the rolling and the excessive purging of melot, whose correlation is negative with almost all others. Julbernardia pellegriniana recorded the highest loss volumes both at the skidding sites (306.72 m3) and the forest parks (277.29 m3). Entandrophagma cylindricum (1.11 m3) recorded the lowest at the skidding sites and Cyclicodiscus gabonensis (5.87 m3), at the forest parks. A total volume of 1127.61 m3 of timber losses was recorded, corresponding to 111,117,057 FCFA (169,644.36 €) of economic loss throughout the production chain for an estimated annual of 666,702,342 FCFA (1,017,866.17 €). These results could have been minimized given the small sampling rate (1%) due to the short period of data collection and the difficulty of access to certain sites. It is quite conceivable that the losses could be slightly higher if this sampling rate was increased. Limiting timber losses could reduce harvested forest areas while increasing yield and monetary benefits. This could be effective if monitoring and capacity-building processes were undertaken by both logging companies and the forest administration.